Jailed former governor says he bought votes for Rio Olympics

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A jailed former governor of Rio de Janeiro state has told a judge he paid about $2 million for the votes of International Olympic Committee members to award the Brazilian city the 2016 Summer Games.

Sergio Cabral said Thursday that he paid the bribes through intermediaries to the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Lamine Diack, in exchange for up to six votes in the meeting that awarded Rio the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Cabral said former Brazilian Olympic Committee chairman Carlos Arthur Nuzman handled the negotiations.

Nuzman’s attorney João Francisco Neto told reporters the accusation is “a version faded to disappear” because the former governor has no evidence.

Diack, meanwhile, is facing trial in France for corruption and money laundering and has been accused of taking money to cover up positive doping tests by Russian athletes.

Cabral governed Rio state between 2003 and 2010. He was arrested in November 2016 for corruption in one of the many cases against him.